The Vega Lab is part of the Biology Department at Emory University.
Our work focuses on combining experiments in synthetic ecological microcosms with mathematical modeling to study fundamental questions in theoretical ecology and evolutionary systems biology. A major focus of the group is the ecology and evolution of host-associated microbial communities, using C. elegans as a model host organism.
Broadly, our work focuses on the function and composition of populations in natural environments and the possibilities for external control of these populations. In particular, we investigate the establishment, maintenance, and stress-induced dynamics of host-associated populations and the effects of environmental variation and spatial structure on community function. Recent work in the lab explores genomics and evolution, particularly in the context of antibiotic resistance in host-associated microbial communities.
For more information, see my CV and Google Scholar page or contact me.
Recent papers
- Boddu, S.S.*, Martini, K. M, Nemenman, I and Vega, N.M. “Variance in C. elegans gut bacterial load suggests complex host-microbe dynamics.” bioRxiv. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.09.627557v1
- Berryhill, Brandon A., Teresa Gil-Gil, Christopher Witzany, David A. Goldberg, Nic M. Vega, Roland R. Regoes, and Bruce R. Levin. 2024. The Dynamics of Staphylococcal Infection and Their Treatment with Antibiotics and Bacteriophage in the Galleria Mellonella Model System. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.23.609294
- Vega, N.M. “Heterogeneous shedding and susceptibility in a Caenorhabditis elegans transmission model.” bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/2024.06.04.597401
- Taylor, M. & Vega, N.M. “Sample pooling inflates error rates in between-sample comparisons: an empirical investigation of the statistical properties of count-based data.” bioRxiv doi:10.1101/2022.07.25.501406
- Martini, K. M, Boddu, S.S., Taylor, MN, Nemenman, I and Vega, N.M. (2024) Correlations in microbial abundance data reveal host-bacteria and bacteria-bacteria interactions jointly shaping the C. elegans microbiome. Physical Review Research 6(4): 043219. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.043219
- Chen, J.Z., Junker, A., Zheng, I., Gerardo, N.M., and Vega, N.M. (2024) A strong priority effect in the assembly of a specialized insect-microbe symbiosis. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 90(10): e00818-24. doi: 10.1128/aem.00818-24
- Martini, K. M, Boddu, S.S., Nemenman, I and Vega, N.M. (2024) Maximum Likelihood Estimators For Colony Forming Units. Microbiology Spectrum e03946-23 doi: 10.1128/spectrum.03946-23
- Sandra Y Mendiola, Jason Z Chen*, Ben Lukubye, David J Civitello, Nic M Vega, Nicole M Gerardo. (2024) Differential gene expression in the insect vector Anasa tristis in response to symbiont colonization but not infection with a vectored phytopathogen. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 12: 1390625. doi:10.3389/fevo.2024.1390625
- Chen, J., Kwong, Z., Gerardo, N.M., and Vega, N.M. (2024) Ecological drift during colonization drives within- and between-host heterogeneity in animal symbiont populations. PLOS Biology 22(4): e3002304. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002304
- Duckett, M.§, Taylor, M.N.§, Bowman, C., and Vega, N.M. (2024) Parallel evolution of alternate morphotypes of Chryseobacterium gleum during experimental evolution with Caenorhabditis elegans. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 100(5): fiae039. doi:10.1093/femsec/fiae039
- Villa, S., Chen, J., Kwong, Z., Acosta, A., Vega, N.M., & Gerardo, N.M. (2023) Complex symbiont acquisition behavior maintains a horizontally transmitted insect-microbial mutualism. Current Biology 33(13): 2830-2838.e4. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.05.062
- Taylor, M., Janasky, L, and Vega, N. M. (2022) Convergent structure with divergent adaptations in combinatorial microbiome communities. FEMS Microbiology Ecology 98 (11): fiac115. https://doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiac115.
- Taylor, M., Boddu, S.S., & Vega, N. M. (2022) Using single-worm data to quantify heterogeneity in Caenorhabditis elegans-bacterial interactions. JoVE 185: e64027. doi: 10.3791/64027